About

The $70-million Joint Health Sciences Center will be shared by Rutgers University-Camden, Rowan University and Camden County College and further the city’s push to become an educational and medical hub.

The four-story, 95,000-square-foot facility, which should be completed by spring 2019, would contain laboratories and classroom space along with common areas shared among students and faculty from the three education tenants. It will be made up of two joined buildings.

Rowan plans to use part of its share of the space for a satellite office of the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging, which is currently located in Stratford. That center would provide geriatric care and aging research.

And 30,000 square feet of the center will be a “simulation center” for Rowan’s School of Osteopathic Medicine and CCC’s allied health program. This portion of the building will allow for training in several medical procedures through computer simulations. There will also be lifelike training manikins (medical mannequins) that mimic breathing, a heartbeat, and other bodily functions.

Besides teaching, there will be research in the facility, with a focus on fighting diseases.

Camden is counting on educational and medical institutions to create jobs for residents and to make the city a more desirable place to live. Already, 33 percent of the jobs in Camden are in health or education, according to a report provided by the Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors.

Speaking at the groundbreaking, Dana Redd, Camden’s mayor, said “eds and meds have created a new identity for the city from its industrial past.”